Komputer for Alle 1998 #6/1998 CD 6 (Gul).iso/web/ffa/wwwenv~1.org/arrs/digest/news35~1.htm/text0029.txt

Text File | 1998-04-03 | 6.6 KB | 143 lines

[Good news if it's proven!]

>From The Electronic Telelgraph - Saturday, March 29th, 1997

The pig issue . . .

Pigs are being taught how to play computer games: it is the first step
towards communicating with them, finds Ross Clark

WHEN George Orwell wrote about resentful pigs plotting to overthrow the
oppressive regime of Animal Farm, he was presumably intending an allegory.
But it turns out that his world of angry young pigs may have been closer to
the truth than he realised. An intriguing research project in a Pennsylvania
laboratory is revealing that pigs really do have an imagination, and perhaps
are even capable of harbouring ill feelings about the way in which freedom
is denied them.

According to behavioural psychologist Professor Stanley Curtis of
Pennsylvania State University, the results could have implications for the
way in which farm animals are treated. He hopes his experiments will finally
provide the scientific justification for free-range farming
techniques. If we want to continue breeding farm animals, he says, in future
we may have to take their feelings into account.

"What we want to know is whether, if we keep a pig in a confined
environment, it is capable of wanting to be somewhere else," he says.
"Until now we've always assumed a pig cannot do that - it's a case of out of
sight, out of mind. But we may be wrong. We want to find out
whether a pig who has seen an animal wallowing in the mud begins to daydream
of wallowing in the mud himself when the weather gets hot. Or even if a pig
who has never experienced wallowing at first hand is capable of conceiving
of doing it."

To reach inside the mind of a pig is going to be a long process, Prof Curtis
concedes. The first stage, currently underway, is to probe the animals'
capacity for abstract ideas. To this end he is training a team of pigs to
play a series of basic computer games, of the kind long
employed to stimulate remedial children. The animals are sat in front of a
screen and have their snout attached to a joystick, which controls icons on
the screen.

The pigs are then let loose on the games, the prize for completing them
being a series of food rewards. In one game a number of icons appear on the
screen. One is controlled by the pig himself; the others move in pre-set
patterns. The question is whether the pig realises he
is controlling an icon, and whether he can get the hang of moving his icon
along with the others.

In another game the pig is shown a series of coloured dots following a
trajectory across the screen. At first the dots are visible; they then
disappear, only to reappear later along their trajectory. The point is to
see whether the pig's eyes follow the passage of the dots even
when they are not visible.

In this, the pigs are already showing some promise: they appear to retain
some memory of a computer icon, long after it has disappeared from the
screen. If they can remember that it is likely they can also remember people
and places they cannot see.

"Early results suggest that pigs are, in fact, capable of abstract
representation," says Prof Curtis. "We've made the connection with them that
the joystick means something, and found they are able to hold an icon in the
mind, and remember it at a later date. The pigs are progressing faster than
we imagined, and we're into uncharted territory now."

The next step is to introduce more complex images onto the screen, such as a
representation of a truffle, and to test whether they can hold that in their
mind too.

Many of the techniques used to investigate the pigs' minds were originally
developed for evaluating the intelligence of apes, and have been used to
establish an informal league table of animals' intellectual achievement. One
of the most surprising findings was that
chimpanzees can pick up certain video games faster than the average human being.

The imaginative side of animals has proved a more elusive matter. All we
have had is anecdotes: miners who have spoken of the sad eyes of a pit pony,
dreaming perhaps of the green pastures he has left behind; animals which
appear to pine; and, of course, the freaks of  the animal world such as
Greyfriars Bobby, the dog who attended his master's grave in Edinburgh for
14 years. Many people take it for granted that their pets have an
imaginative life and are able to think about people and things in their
absence, even if the scientists are
more cautious in their conclusions.

The next big question for the Pennsylvania team is whether pigs can
recognise pictures of themselves, their families and their playmates, and
whether they react to those pictures emotionally. There is already some
evidence that chimps can do this, but the implications
for farm animals having such a capacity would be astounding: at present,
animals are farmed in the belief that they will not miss the lambs that are
taken away for slaughter.

Prof Curtis contends that not only are animals capable of such feelings,
they may also be capable of building up long-term resentments; not just the
cussedness which any farmer encounters from time to time when his charges
object to their physical handling, but deeply-held frustrations lasting a
lifetime. The bull glowering at  you from behind the barbed wire could be
dreaming of the cows he is never allowed to meet, and the horse snorting
down his nostrils at you from his tiny paddock could be harbouring fond
memories of
open fields.

"Our ultimate goal is to communicate with the pigs," says Prof Curtis, "and
find out their secrets for good."

Then, perhaps, we shall know if real pigs, like George Orwell's Napoleon,
have pencilled in a revolution for some time in the future.

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 14:49:45 -0500
>From: Wyandotte Animal Group <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Poll @ 96 March
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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I am trying to get the results from the poll that was being taken at last
year's March for the Animals.  Does anyone know who was conducting it the
day of the March and/or have a copy of its findings?  If the report is
faxable, I'd appreciate a copy.

Any leads appreciated.

Thanks.

Jason Alley
[phone]  FAX


Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 19:26:06 -0500
>From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: (US) Legless chicken struts again
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